SaturdayReflection

  29^th July 2023

Ray Watson speaks of

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Soaking In The Presence Of God

Do you desire to live in God's presence 24/7?

If you want to enter His presence, simply look to Jesus.
Jesus is anointed to make the presence of God real to you.

Being hungry for His presence and desiring to be in the presence of the Lord, on a daily basis, should be our greatest priority... just to be with Him and seek His presence with all our hearts.

We all live in His presence all the time,

("In Him we live and move and have our being")

but not many people are aware of it.

We long to experience Him in some way.
When we talk about experiencing the presence of the Lord, we are talking about the realisation of God's presence - of perceiving His presence and being conscious of Him.

David said in Psalm 139:7,

"Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence?"

He concludes that there is no place that we can hide from God's presence - He is everywhere and sees everything. Because of this we can know that we are never alone and that He shall never leave us nor forsake us.

The indwelling presence of God is given to all who believe.

"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit has His permanent dwelling in you?"

How can we long and hunger for something that is already all around us and dwells within us?

It is as much as case of increasing our awareness of His presence as it is an increase of His presence itself.
Although God is always with us, it is obvious that there are times when His presence is with us in greater measure, and we experience God's intimate presence in a greater capacity.

God reveals Himself to those that earnest seek Him (Deuteronomy 4:29).
If we want to walk in the presence of the Lord, then we need to be practicing the presence of God.

"Practising His presence" through worship is one of the ways this can happen.
God has promised that as we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us and we will experience His presence in ever increasing measures.

By placing ourselves before Him in a place of adoration, we make room for Him, and through focusing our attention on Him, increase our awareness of being in the Presence of God in our lives.

Learning how to soak in God's presence through worship is one of the most valuable things we can do with our time.
This how to abide in the presence of God, by abiding in worship.

Another way to abide in the presence of God is to practice abiding in His Word. Jesus said,

"if you abide in Me and My Words abide in you, you will ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you."

This is because abiding in Him means we will ask 'according to the Father's will'.
Jesus is always present with His Word. Abiding in the word of God will always bring an increase in the sense of His manifest presence.

Brother Lawrence (1614 to 1691) was a monk, who today is most commonly remembered for the closeness of his relationship with God, as recorded in this little book.
He spent almost all of his adult life in solitude, poverty, and obscurity within the walls of a priory. He was known for profound peace and high commitment to Jesus.
He cared not for the worldly status of his tasks, but the motivation behind it.

"We can do little things for God," he wrote. "I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king.

It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God."

Generations after his death, this book has become one of the most popular Christian books in history.
It was oft quoted by John Wesley and A.W. Tozer, and today tens of millions of copies are in circulation.

Bible references avaiable, on request

The Secret Place -
Turning hearts back to the Father through intimate praise and worship.
Ray, and his wife Pam, pastor Pursuit church in Auckland, New Zealand.
They have been in ministry together for twenty years. Initially helping to pioneer a church in Hawaii, they later moved to California before returning to New Zealand in 1990 to start their own church. In 2004 the church was rebirthed as Pursuit, after they felt God leading them in a new direction with a passion for pursuing His presence.